Egypt's sectarian shame
The Egyptian government can no longer turn a blind eye to tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians
"Long live the cross" chanted a crowd Copts, members of Egypt's oldest Christian community, as they marched in the funeral processions of six of their number shot after leaving Christmas Eve mass last week in the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi. The attack, which has shocked the country and the region, was followed by riots, civil unrest and an escalation in the tensions between the two communities.
Believed to have been carried out to avenge the rape of a Muslim girl by a Christian man, it is the latest outbreak of violence in an increasingly tense relationship. In a series of events over the past few years, Christians and Muslims have have clashed over plays, bumper stickers and land. Copts have been asserting their identity in the face of the promotion of an increasingly monolithic national character. While there are some cases where there is obvious discrimination, there are others where the Egyptian government's characteristically slapdash approach to public health and safety has fuelled a sense of persecution. The entirely unnecessary slaughter of hundreds of thousands of pigs, kept by Christian farmers, did nothing to allay concerns that the minority is being targeted.
Egypt has the largest Coptic minority in the Middle East. Khartoum in neighbouring Sudan also had a significant Coptic population, but this has gradually been eroded since the National Islamic Front came to power in 1989. Before then, several of my classmates were Coptic, the head of the community's Christmas and Easter messages were broadcast on national television, and several private schools in the city had been established or were run by nuns. It was in Khartoum where, as a child, I attended my first church ceremony, a close family friend's Greek Orthodox wedding. It's hard to imagine that kind of relaxed entente between a Muslim and Christian family now, so straitjacketed has the city's identity become. Slowly, the exclusive brand of nationalistic Islam that the government spread like a blanket over the country's media and popular culture alienated non-Muslims and the majority of Copts emigrated, primarily to Egypt, which most considered to be their natural refuge.
As a student in Cairo, I felt that Egypt had in fact travelled even further down this road. I was taken aside by Muslim girls in my dorm and told off for being too relaxed with other Coptic housemates who had "the devil in them". Ironically, the hostel, generously adorned with Christian themed imagery and artwork, was run by Catholic nuns. The agitators clearly had no problem with Christianity, it was more a suspicion of Copts as a sub-culture that are out to get Muslims.
Arab governments rarely admit and tackle such splits head on. Whenever there is an outbreak of sectarian violence, authorities resort to fire-fighting, dismissing the event as a one off, attributing it to unhinged rogue elements or conspiratorial external forces – everything but a sober admission and confrontation of the issues. Either that or there is official state silence, which is less a tacit endorsement of discrimination and more an indication that the state is not in the business of admitting culpability or failure. It was no surprise when the official Egyptian news agency quoted Shenouda, the head of Egypt's Coptic church, and Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, imam of al-Azhar university, as saying the attack was "unlikely to harm what they called the strong bonds between Egypt's Muslims and Christians".
Legitimising criticism might open the floodgates and bring down the whole structure. Demonstrating against Israel, the Muhammad cartoons, the murder of Marwa el-Sherbiny and against the Algerian football team is positively encouraged as it diverts frustration, but as Mona Eltahawy railed on Twitter, there's not much point in holding one's breath in anticipation of popular marches against the Coptic shootings.
The Egyptian government is in a difficult position of its own making; it cannot afford actively to advocate on behalf of Copts for fear of offending the majority Muslim population. In addition, it has to pay lip service to a religious mandate which it has fostered in order to buttress its legitimacy.
In a recent article Khaled Diab observed that "the state has lived in denial of the problem, which it has contributed to with its recent hamfisted attempts, in order to appease the growing conservative Islamic current, to juggle the conflicting roles of champion of secularism and defender of Islam."
Those behind the attacks have reportedly been arrested. Their trial and punishment will close the case and things will revert to an increasingly uneasy coexistence. But tackling sectarian issues through the trials of individuals is a cul de sac. It is the failure of insecure, highly centralised governments that makes victims of both Muslims and Christians.